Chapter 22: Grandmother's Order

On Thursday night I went to the diner after closing to find out what soup supper he meant.

The chairs were up on the tables.

Caleb stood at the back counter with a ladle in one hand and a pencil behind his ear.

A cardboard box sat in front of him.

"You didn't tell me," I said.

"I was going to."

"When?"

"After the hearing, when you were less angry."

"I wasn't angry at the hearing."

"You were angry in a very calm way. It made me nervous."

I set the carrier on a stool.

Poppy was asleep in it, with her fists up by her ears.

"A supper for the whole town," I said. "For her birthday."

"For her birthday, and for the soup."

He wiped his hands.

"It seemed to me that Little Pines owed you a lot of bowls."

"Caleb."

"Let me finish. I've been planning it since the school breakfast."

He took a small tin box out of the cardboard one and set it on the counter between us.

It was a flat green recipe tin, dented at the corners.

I knew it at once.

"That's Grandma's," I said.

"She left it here, her last Christmas."

He opened his hands.

"She came in with it under her arm, and I thought she wanted me to have the recipes."

I opened the lid.

Inside, under the index cards in her thin, slanting hand, lay a folded envelope with my name on it.

It was soft from being handled, and the flap had been opened and closed many times.

"She told me to give it to you the day you asked me for something," he said.

"I never asked you for anything."

"No. So I kept it."

"Why didn't you just hand it over?"